The former dictator “no longer benefits from personal immunity associated with his old functions.” After the cancellation of the Court of Cassation of an arrest warrant addressed to former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for fatal chemical attacks in Syria, the anti-terrorist prosecution requested the question of a new arrest warrant, the former dictator is no longer protected by the personal immunity of the heads of state in practice.
The Office of the National Prosecutor against Terrorism (PNAT) announced on Monday, July 28 in a statement requested on Friday by the issuance of an arrest warrant and its international dissemination of crimes leaders against humanity and the complicity of war crimes against Bashar al-Assad. “
“We appreciate that the PNAT is now on the side of the civil parties and we recognize the importance of issuing an arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad, today in exile in Russia, taking note of the lack of applicability of any functional immunity towards him,” he reacted to the clémenco of the AFP and Jeanne Sulzer, partial lawyer.
“If the investigating judges follow it, which we do not doubt, the main problem will be the effective execution and dissemination of this mandate that we expect is immediate,” they added.
Canceled mandate
The Cassation Court canceled the arrest warrant issued in November 2023 on Friday by two Parisian investigation judges against Bashar al-Assad in the field that there is no exception to the personal immunity of the heads of state in practice due to the sovereignty of the states.
This personal immunity is not equivalent to impunity and remains temporary, said Christophe Soulard, president of the Cassation Court, during an unprecedented public hearing on the Internet.
This arrest warrant, issued while Bashar al-Assad was still in charge of Syria, was challenged by the PNAT, supported by the General Office of the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals of Paris, on behalf of the absolute immunity that the heads of state enjoyed before the courts of foreign countries.
But, on Friday, the highest jurisdiction of the French court order, gathered in the plenary assembly, its most solemn training, also recognized, for the first time, an exception to the functional immunity from which the agents of foreign states benefit, as well as the former heads of state, if they are prosecuted for crimes of war and crimes against humanity.
“Functional immunity”
“Bashar al -assad has lost an effective control of Syria and stopped de facto to occupy the function of the head of state of the Syrian Arab Republic as of December 8, 2024, date of the overthrow of power and from its flight outside the Syrian territory, it does not benefit more from the personal immunity attached to its previous functions, but only of the immunity of functionality to the act of acts.
In November 2023, two investigation judges of the Pole of Crimes against Humanity of the Court of Paris, in November 2023, an international arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attacks attributed to their diet on August 5 in Adra and Douuma (450 injured), then on August 21, 2013 in the east of Ghouta (more than a thousand people killed with Sarin Gas, according to information).
If the investigative magistrates order this new arrest warrant, it would be the second aim at Bashar al-Assad in judicial information in France, the PNAT underlines.
On January 20, 2025, an arrest warrant was issued against the complicity of the war crime against the former Syrian president by two Parisian investigation judges for the bombing of a civil housing area attributed to the regime in Deraa (southwest of Syria) in 2017. The office of the anti -terrorist prosecutor recalled this required this on January 16, January 16.
The former strong man of Damascus, who took refuge in Russia, could be judged in France, even in his absence, if at the end of these two judicial information, the investigating judges order a trial against him.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is not competent for international crimes committed in Syria, the country has not ratified the Treaty of Rome that instituted it. And no resolution of the United Nations Security Council has ordered its reference.
Source: BFM TV
